THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Among the many bills working their way through the General Assembly is one small but important one in danger of sneaking through unexamined. HB 1307 passed the House unanimously, but it should not become law.
The bill would eliminate the Health Services Cost Review Council that tracks health care in Virginia and compiles statistics useful to consumers and industry watchdogs.
Thanks to this small council it's possible to learn how health-care providers, including hospitals, compare as regards profits, occupancy rates, in-patient and out-patient charges, charity care, Medicare days, average cost per discharge, charges by diagnosis and other performance measures.
If the legislation is adopted, much of that information - now published in ``Health Care Industry Trends,'' an annual report on hospitals and nursing homes - will no longer be readily available.
It is used by individual consumers, but more importantly by those who look out for their interests, groups like the AARP, legislators, regional health-care planning agencies and health providers themselves. And there aren't a lot of other games in town. A national health-planning system which tracked health-care costs was eliminated in 1986. The Cost Review Council filled the vacuum on a statewide basis. But if it goes, so does the data.
Many hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs are lined up in favor of the legislation to kill the council and to stop making the data available. While their lack of enthusiasm for invidious comparisons is understandable, the public interest ought to take precedence over special interests.
Huge changes are under way in health care. Fee-for-service medicine is giving way to managed care. Cost consciousness is the order of the day. Federal health-care dollars are under pressure. Employees find themselves dealing with new and unaccustomed medical arrangements. Consumers of health care are forced to make more choices regarding their own treatment.
Now, more than ever, information regarding which institutions perform well and how they compare is essential. Yet instead of providing such data and disseminating it more widely, this legislation would make it harder to obtain. That's a big step in the wrong direction. The Health Services Cost Review Council should be retained and its publications funded. by CNB